


The Message

by idlestories



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Criminals, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, BAMF Merlin (Merlin), Drowning, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, Interrogation, M/M, Torture, of an unspecified nature, or is it hurt/vengeance, shady shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2020-11-23
Packaged: 2021-03-09 17:48:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27690259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idlestories/pseuds/idlestories
Summary: Merlin and Arthur are interrogated for information about the shady criminal group they're involved in. But on whose orders, and what will they do when they find out?
Relationships: Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Comments: 16
Kudos: 134





	The Message

**Author's Note:**

> i finished this like thirty minutes ago and have spent all that time trying to come up with a goddamn title rip here u go. they are, in this, into some kind of deliberately vague shady shit, choose ur own criminal enterprise.
> 
> anyway i was proselytising to [ eat_crow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eat_crow/pseuds/eat_crow) about the americans, as i do, and then i ended up starting a rewatch and something vaguely like this happens in 1x06 so that's where this came from. the genres i have jumped in my most recent handful of works is kind of impressive, consistency whomst.
> 
> you... should've read the tags, but to be clear, there's like. torture in here. enjoy, if that's the right word?

It took everything in Merlin not to fight. To let himself be dragged from the car, hands tied behind his back, a hood over his head and the taste of blood in his mouth. His head throbbed where something had hit him, and it wasn’t such a stretch to fake a stumble to see what his escort would do. They barely faltered, holding him upright, but his feet splashed in a puddle and he wondered uneasily if he’d been out long enough to miss rain, or worse, if they’d left the city.

They stopped, and one let go of his arm to slide open what sounded like a heavy metal bolt. He forced himself to relax some more. It was unlikely these guys were cops, what with the hood and the kidnapping. Rivals, maybe. Or one of many enemies, made by someone who wasn’t Merlin. Although, he acknowledged, he had made a few.

The door slammed open on some very rusty hinges, the sound spiking through Merlin’s head. He was marched inside. Concrete floor. Silence, except for the hum of fluorescent lighting and the distant drip of water. There always was a drip, in these places.

“Hey, what are you –” Merlin’s first attempt at friendly conversation was cut off by a quick and not entirely unexpected jab to the kidney, and he gasped. His voice echoed, as it would in a big space. A warehouse, maybe? Cliché.

They came to a stop, and Merlin heard a chair being dragged across the concrete, which he was promptly and roughly manoeuvred into, very nearly receiving a dislocated shoulder for his trouble as his tied hands were forced over the back of it. They moved to his feet, helping themselves to another pat-down around his ankles as they went.

He tensed, contemplating a kick, but relaxed (of a sort) as the distinctive shape of a handgun came to rest against his forehead. He sat very still while his ankles were tied to the chair legs.

The gun was withdrawn, and with it, the hood. He blinked and frowned, feeling dried blood stretch and crack on his forehead. He squinted in the harsh fluorescents, looking around with distaste at what he now realised was an old multi-storey car park.

Instinctively, he pushed up on his tiptoes, hoping to destabilise the chair, maybe even tip it, but the ropes stopped him from getting anywhere. The man to his right kicked lightly at his foot, and the chair fell back the inch or so it had made it off the ground. Merlin looked to his side to see him watching him carefully, as one might watch a specimen in a lab.

He made the call. Scared and confused it was, then. He let panic bleed into his expression and creased his forehead, straining against the ropes and looking around wildly. The chair rattled a little but didn’t move.

“Wh – where am I? What’s happening? Who are you guys?” His voice trembled, and he congratulated himself on a fine performance. He looked desperately between them, but Goon #2 was in the middle of slipping off into the shadows in the direction of the door.

He looked at #1 pleadingly. Bingo. His eyes flickered over Merlin’s head for a fraction of a second. Merlin kept up his panicked look for another second, then turned to look in that direction. Too dark to tell. He squinted, and thought he could make out a figure, a patch of darker black, but no more.

He turned back to face the man at his side. “Please, I –” Goon #1’s moment of hesitation had passed, and a fist slammed into Merlin’s stomach. The air left his chest as he reflexively tried to curl around the hit, only to be held back by the ropes. He wheezed, but turned his performance up a notch as soon as he could talk again.

“Please, I swear, whatever it is, you’ve got the wrong guy, you –”

“See, I don’t think we have, Mr Emrys.” The man wasn’t even looking at Merlin from where he was leaning against a table, now, busy rolling up his shirt sleeves.

Merlin recovered from the momentary shock. “I swear, I don’t know what you’re talking about – ”

“I think you do,” the man cut in calmly, pulling a cigarette from a pack and lighting it. He took a drag and looked at Merlin, who wasn’t quite ready to give up yet.

“My name is –”

“Merlin Emrys,” he interrupted. “Of 117 Hawthorn Road, son of –”

“That’s not my name,” Merlin insisted.

“Well.” The corner of the man’s mouth tugged upward around his cigarette before he took it out, flicking the ash to the ground. “Maybe it wasn’t always, at least. See, the details of Merlin Emrys’s life get a little sketchy once you go, oh, fifteen years or so back.”

Merlin was silent.

“So maybe it’s that. Or maybe that it’s not your only name, either. I would get confused, too.” He reached behind him for a little pile of papers, which he flashed at Merlin one by one. Photocopies. “Driving licences, video store memberships, library cards. In a few different names. And passports, too, in quite a lovely variety of colours.” He held one of the photocopies out and looked curiously between the grainy photo and Merlin’s face. He shrugged and set them down, taking another deep drag on his cigarette.

“I like to travel,” Merlin said tightly. The man exhaled a cloud of smoke.

“Quite a stash of weapons, too,” the man said lightly. “For a mid-market ghostwriter.”

“Writing a crime novel.”

“I think you might be living one, Mr Emrys. Why don’t we save ourselves some time? We know who you are. Who you work for. Sorry, belong to,” he corrected, with particularly greasy emphasis on the last two words.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Merlin said stubbornly, minorly distracted by feeling the knots in the ropes around his hands and tensing his forearms in an attempt to loosen them.

“Kilgharrah.”

Merlin’s hands stuttered and froze in their motion. His mind raced. No one knew that name. No one else. No one who lived to tell about it.

“Never heard of it,” he said. The man raised his eyebrows and removed the half-smoked cigarette from his mouth, setting it carefully on the edge of the table, where smoke curled above the lit end and ash fell below.

Merlin really should’ve been expecting the hits, but the man moved quickly, closing the gap and raining a half dozen punches into his stomach. Merlin coughed and groaned. He felt sweat break out on his forehead, and fought to even out his breathing. He raised his head and was rewarded with a punch to the face, for good measure. His head snapped around and he felt skin on his cheek break under what was presumably a ring. His head spun.

For a moment, the only sound was his own harsh breathing and his heartbeat echoing in his ears. He exhaled heavily and opened his eyes. He cracked his jaw and rolled his neck with a wince, before staring resolutely at thre wall.

“I want names,” the man said casually. “The rest of your little gang. Contacts. Meeting places. Targets.” Merlin kept staring at the wall. “Nothing? Are you sure?”

Merlin allowed his heart to settle down before he spoke, saying, as deep down he had always known he might have to, “I’ll die first.”

The man shook his head as he walked back to the table. He poked at the remains of his last cigarette, and shook out the pack for a new one. He held it between his lips and reached into his pocket. A text alert chimed, and he pulled out his phone and smiled.

Merlin tried not to appear unsettled.

The man tapped out a quick response and replaced his phone in his pocket, finding instead his lighter and lighting the new cigarette. He turned to face Merlin, then walked back over and took a long drag. The end of the cigarette glowed.

He held eye contact with Merlin, and put it out on his shoulder. Merlin gave a hoarse yell and strained against the ropes. He squeezed his eyes shut so tight he saw stars, and it was only distantly that he realised the pained little gasps he could hear were coming from himself. All of his attention had rapidly and understandably been transferred to the centimetre of pure pain in his shoulder.

Eventually the searing burn faded to something more manageable and he slumped back, breathing heavily. The man calmly placed the cigarette back between his lips and relit it.

“You’ll die first, huh?” He tilted his head and Merlin heard a door slam outside. “Well, maybe you would, I don’t know. But the real question is, will you let him?”

A pit opened up in Merlin’s stomach as the door creaked open and a furious-looking Arthur was marched in and forced to his knees, a gun to his head. He went very still when he saw Merlin, who assumed, correctly, that he looked like shit.

“I’m okay, I’m okay,” he said, but Arthur shook his head slightly.

“They told me you were – you were dead,” he said dully. Merlin felt more than a little sick imagining what he would do if someone told him Arthur was dead.

“Greatly exaggerated rumours, those,” he said, with a weak smile.

Arthur huffed out a laugh, and a cut on his lip split open. Blood welled up on the surface. Something tightened in Merlin’s chest. Something that wanted to lick that off and then kill whoever had caused it. Or the other way around, he wasn’t fussy, really.

“The writer and the businessman.” Both turned to look at the man. “Like something out of a romance novel. Met ten years ago, married the last five. Love’s young dream. Would you die for him, Mr Emrys?” he said, in the tone of someone asking about the weather.

“Yes,” Merlin said easily. Then he smiled. He’d been told it wasn’t a pleasant smile. “But I’d rather kill for him.”

“Hm. And you, Mr Pendragon?”

“Go fuck yourself.”

The man smiled tightly and motioned for Arthur’s watcher to step back. He did so, keeping the gun trained on its target. Lightning quick, the first man knocked Arthur flat on his stomach, a knee in his back. He leaned a little harder and Arthur wheezed against the cold ground.

“Names? Anyone? Contacts?”

At their silence, he gestured impatiently, until the other man threw him a pair of pliers. Merlin tensed, uselessly. He forced Arthur’s hand up behind his back, and, with a few seconds' effort, pulled a fingernail off. Arthur yelled, his face pressed to the concrete. The chair scraped along the ground as Merlin tried to move, but he said nothing, lips pressed so tightly together they were white.

The man looked at Merlin with interested, then gave a low whistle. “Nothing, eh? Well, he’s got nine more of these and a few dozen teeth. There’s still time.” Merlin still didn’t react. “Christ, you’re a cold one, aren’t you? Do you really think he loves you, Arthur? If he can sit and watch you like this and do nothing?”

Merlin clenched his fists behind his back. “Get his name out of your mouth,” he snarled. The man’s eyes glinted in triumph, but he continued as though Merlin hadn’t spoken.

“Or maybe he likes you like this. All spread out and helpless under someone else.” He let Arthur’s injured hand drop and his own drift down Arthur’s shirt to his waist, where he ran a finger along the leather of his belt. Merlin looked away.

He scoffed. “It must be him, then. It’s always one.” He stood, and clicked his fingers for his counterpart to resume his position holding the gun to Arthur’s head. “Still nothing?” he said to Merlin, almost hopefully. Merlin ignored him in favour of imagining a very creative, drawn out and messy murder. “Yes, I think it must be him.”

Merlin almost laughed. They didn’t know half as much as they thought they did if they thought Arthur was going to break. Arthur hadn’t spoken to his own sister for two years out of sheer stubbornness. While they were living in the same house. By the time they’d reconciled, he had almost forgotten what it had been about. Morgana certainly hadn’t.

And Merlin had enough of his own practise trying to pry information out of Arthur, with an entirely different set of interrogation tactics at his disposal. Even then he had only had limited success, and he was pretty sure these guys weren’t about to rim Arthur for the first time.

The man shrugged, and moved to drag a large tub out in front of Merlin, water sloshing over the sides. He knelt to untie Merlin’s feet, with a meaningful look towards the gun at Arthur’s head, and manhandled Merlin into a kneeling position in front of the tub.

Merlin’s heart sped up, and he barely had a chance to meet Arthur’s panicked eyes before he was grabbed roughly by the hair and forced beneath the surface.

He fought to stay calm. He could hold his breath. Not-breathing was easy. He did it all the time, in those moments between the inhale and the exhale, all day, in fact. He held it as long as he could, feeling the final bubbles escaping his nose, before biology, as it always, always did, took over.

Even people who really, really want to drown find themselves fighting for air.

Merlin twitched. Then his foot spasmed behind him. Then he started to thrash wildly, unable to grab at anything for purchase, his balance thrown off by his awkward position. He took a tiny breath involuntarily, and inhaled water, his vision darkening before he was pulled back up, dripping and gasping.

“Names,” the man said, in a bored tone. “Locations. Kilgharrah’s coffee order. Anything. This can all be over.”

Merlin coughed and hacked, and aimed a large glob of spit at the man’s face. He missed, but it landed on his shirt, and he watched as it soaked into the white material. His ribs ached.

His head was forced down again, and his ribs banged painfully against the rim of the tub, the pain surprising enough to provoke an inhale just as his face hit the water. There was no pretending to be calm this time. He was drowning, fire in his chest and a frightening tiredness creeping in at the edges of his limbs. He found himself thinking, dimly, that this might be it, actually. He might really die here, after everything.

But then he was up again, and the room was spinning and he coughed and shuddered, weakly throwing up cold water, his throat burning. His eyes forced enough to see Arthur watching him, pale and more furious than Merlin had ever seen him.

A hand tangled in his hair again, and he tensed, but his dreaded downward motion stopped abruptly at the sound of a lighter, and some footsteps from the side. Merlin stopped struggling. He listened. There was a click, and a spark. The end of a cigar glowed red in the dark, and a cloud of smoke drifted into the light before its owner.

Merlin closed his eyes, briefly. The lighter flicked shut. He could’ve identified that sound in his sleep.

“I think that’s enough.”

Merlin could feel the hesitation in his captor’s hands.

“Untie him, Gregory.” Sharper now.

The hand left Merlin’s hair and a knife flicked open and began to hack at the ropes tying his hands.

Kilgharrah stepped into the light.

Merlin’s arms fell to his sides limply. He didn’t look at his aching wrists. The pain in his shoulders was distant, too. He huffed out a hoarse, disbelieving laugh, and sat back on his heels, rubbing distractedly at his chest.

When he finally met Kilgharrah’s eyes they were as cold and calculating as ever. He puffed at the cigar.

“You know,” he began. “That we have a mole. A leak. We had to be certain.”

Oh, Merlin could not fucking believe this, except that he absolutely could.

“Certain?” he croaked.

“I’m sorry.”

“Who ordered this?” Merlin said softly, voice still raspy. “Was this your idea?”

“Over my head.”

“Does – did, ” - Merlin hesitated and grimaced – “Balinor know about this?”

“I don’t know. Out of my hands.”

“But you _let it happen_ ,” Merlin said viciously. “You didn’t vouch for me. You didn’t trust me - me, of all people.”

Kilgharrah shrugged, but his gaze flickered away from Merlin for a second and he understood before Kilgharrah had even spoken.

“If it’s any consolation, it’s mostly him I don’t trust,” he said, pointing at Arthur with his cigar. “He’s not like you. Wasn’t raised in it. Too much heart.” His mouth twisted in an almost-smile. “And I didn’t recruit him myself, after all. You did.”

“Do you honestly think I give a fuck whether it’s me or him? You trust both of us or you trust neither. That’s how it is. That’s how it’s always been, since the day and hour I told him about us. He has _never_ let you down,” Merlin hissed, then caught himself and reeled his tone in again. “Neither of us have.”

“Emrys –”

“You fucking bastard,” Merlin said, almost wonderingly. “You refuse to meet in person. You give us impossible jobs. Your instructions are beyond cryptic. And we take it, and we _get the job done_. We’re the best you’ve got.”

“We had to know,” he repeated. “I’m sorry.” He didn’t sound particularly sorry, and Merlin was filled with the sudden and violent urge to remedy that. He contemplated his various aches and pains and decided it would have to do.

He surged up from the ground and dispatched Gregory with an elbow to the face and a kick to the knee, closing the distance between him and Kilgharrah and pushing him up against a concrete pillar, forearm to his throat.

Kilgharrah dropped his cigar in favour of scrabbling ineffectually at Merlin’s arm at his airway.

Reading Merlin’s mind and in perfect sync as always, Arthur took advantage of the distraction to grab his own guard by the wrist and duck under and away from the gun. He extracted it from the man’s hand with a nasty snapping sound, and within a few seconds their positions had reversed, Arthur pressing a gun to his temple and breathing quickly and lightly.

Merlin pressed harder against Kilgharrah’s windpipe and looked around. Arthur nodded that he was fine, and Merlin gladly gave up the space reserved for worry to rage, letting it fill him even further until he crackled with it.

Kilgharrah’s fingers tightened on Merlin’s arm and he made a particularly alarming choking noise. Merlin let up slightly, but not enough to be comfortable. Kilgharrah opened his mouth but Merlin shook his head.

“I gave you my entire life,” he said calmly. “And this is how you repay me? My loyalty is absolute. Can you say the same?”

He let go, suddenly, and Kilgharrah coughed, and promptly punched him in the stomach. Merlin staggered back as his ribs lit up in pain, but recovered quickly. Kilgharrah might be old and dangerous, but experience could still lose to speed in a fight. He’d been out of the game a long time. Too many years in the shadows had made him slow, and even injured, if there was one thing Merlin was, it was fast.

Merlin easily blocked another blow and slammed the heel of his hand into Kilgharrah’s nose. Blood streamed, and he grabbed the back of his coat and brought him down to meet a knee to the stomach.

Kilgharrah gasped and fell to his knees, and Merlin held him upright by the front of his shirt so he could punch him in the face. Multiple times. It was all very satisfying, even if his hand did hurt.

“Merlin.”

One more, he thought.

“Merlin. You can’t kill him,” Arthur said boredly.

“I’m not trying to,” Merlin said evenly. “Look at him, he’s fine.” Kilgharrah groaned from somewhere in the bloody mess of his face. Merlin frowned.

“If it really wasn’t you who approved this,” he said. “And I don’t actually believe that you don’t have the power to step in on these matters, for the record. But if it really wasn’t you, then tell them - tell them -” He paused, and looked at him in disgust. “Just show them your face." He took a deep breath. "If it was anyone else, you know I wouldn’t stop.”

Kilgharrah croaked a laugh and eyed Merlin through a rapidly swelling eyelid. Blood bubbled from his nose. “I taught you well,” he rasped, and nodded, slightly. Merlin let him drop to the ground.

He flexed his hand. Arthur raised his eyebrows, as though Merlin were late for a date. Merlin nodded. He was done.

Arthur shrugged, and pressed the gun harder into his own terrified hostage’s head.

“Where are my keys?” The man whimpered. “You took me from my car. Where are my keys, and where is my car?” The man fumbled in his pockets with shaking hands and came out with Arthur’s keys, complete with the fluffy crown keyring Merlin had bought him as a joke the year they got engaged, and mumbled a direction.

Arthur took the keys, and removed the gun. The man closed his eyes in relief. Arthur spun the gun in his hand, and knocked him out with the butt. He crumpled.

* * *

They walked outside, Arthur supporting Merlin as he held a hand to his chest.

“Where did they get you?” Merlin winced as he coughed again. “I’ll kill him myself,” Arthur said.

“I’ve got dibs,” Merlin said bitterly. “I’ll peel his fucking face off if I see him in the next month, I swear to God. What did they do to you?”

“Grabbed me in the car, knocked me out. Told me you were dead. The usual,” Arthur replied. “They were…convincing,” he allowed.

Merlin narrowed his eyes and poked Arthur in the ribs. Arthur yelped and smacked his hands away. “Knew it,” he grumbled, moving to trace the bruise at Arthur’s eye with a featherlight touch. “Are we sure we can’t kill him?” They reached the car.

“He’d be dead already if you thought that was a good idea,” Arthur said, amused, as they slid into the car with identical groans. Merlin leaned his head on Arthur’s shoulder.

“Fine, but I think I have the right to some very graphic and disturbing fantasies about it.”

Arthur laughed softly and stretched to put an arm around Merlin with a pained noise. “I was rather hoping I was the only one you had graphic and disturbing fantasies about.”

Merlin raised his head to glare at him and Arthur gave him an innocent look. Merlin rolled his eyes and pulled him in for a bruising kiss, tasting the blood on Arthur’s lips. His ribs screamed at the angle and his breath caught, and they had to stop much sooner than either would’ve liked.

Merlin pressed his head back into the headrest in irritation. Arthur picked up his bloodied hand and kissed it. Merlin made a very frustrated noise.

“Tomorrow,” Arthur said.

“Tomorrow.”

* * *

“So, did I get mugged?” Arthur said, inspecting his bruise in the mirror and picking at his suit collar.

“Did you not get mugged last time?”

“No, I think we had that minor car crash last time. Or I fell down the stairs. Yeah, no, that was it, I had that sprained wrist, remember?”

“Vividly. Your left handed wanking was atrocious.”

“Shut up.”

“Mugged, then. You’d better leave your wallet here. For authenticity.”

Arthur gave him a dirty look. “Obviously I fought them off.”

“Not very well,” Merlin said, and poked Arthur’s bruise, hard. Arthur hissed and poked him in the ribs right back. Merlin flinched and raised his hands in truce. “God, your entire department probably thinks I’m beating you.”

“I did have a funny pamphlet left on my desk last week, now you mention it.”

“Prat,” Merlin muttered, leaning in close.

“Idiot,” Arthur shot back, smiling against his lips. They sank into the kiss until Arthur’s phone chimed in the bedroom and he groaned.

“See you tonight?” Merlin said.

“We do live together.”

Merlin gave him a look. “The dinner party. With the others.”

“Oh, hell, is that tonight? Can’t we get kidnapped again?”

Merlin grinned. “I’ll see what I can do. Go on, get out of here.”

Arthur sighed and turned to leave, then turned back and looked at him suspiciously. “What’s the rush?”

“Punctuality is very important.”

“Try again. What are you doing today?”

“Working.”

“Working,” Arthur said slowly.

“Very important book.”

“That’s funny, I could’ve sworn you were planning to digitally ruin Kilgharrah’s life.”

“You’re too smart for your own good, you know that?”

“Unfortunately, I just know you too well.”

“Go to work, Arthur.”

“Merlin.”

“I’ll put all his money back in a few days, alright?”

Arthur rolled his eyes, kissed him and left.

**Author's Note:**

> my shitty title is in reference to kilgharrah's newly fucked-up face, btw.
> 
> let me know if you liked it! if you... didn't, i also have some very different genres in my other works, so feel free to check those out for idk, light relief, lol.
> 
> thanks for reading! i'm also on [tumblr](https://idlestories.tumblr.com/) under the same handle


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